


You are

by Prim_the_Amazing



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Character Study, Gen, the church feels continue relentlessly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 21:06:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12566180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prim_the_Amazing/pseuds/Prim_the_Amazing
Summary: He is memory. He is facts. He is events that have happened. He is a log, an impossibly advanced and specific history book.“You are Church,” Caboose says to him. “And I am Caboose, your best friend in the world, although I guess you like stupid Tucker too.”





	You are

He is memory. He is facts. He is events that have happened. He is a log, an impossibly advanced and specific history book. 

“You are Church,” Caboose says to him. “And I am Caboose, your best friend in the world, although I guess you like stupid Tucker too.” 

He is Epsilon. He does not remember a Caboose or a Tucker or friends. 

“One--once, you tried to show me how to make breakfast myself. It was fun, but then the oven was doing, uh, stuff it shouldn’t have been doing and you shouted a lot. After that, you always just made breakfast for me. That was a lot of fun too.” 

He remembers: 

You failed the mission, Alpha. 

They’re dead, Alpha. 

She’s gone, Alpha. 

It’s all your fault, Alpha. 

He does not remember: 

Trying to teach someone something as unimportant and foreign to him as to how to prepare food. 

Scolding someone, as if he were in a position to do so, as if he weren’t a hidden, subordinate little thing, below everyone on account that anything that isn’t human belongs  _ under  _ the  _ real  _ people. 

Successfully helping someone in any way on his own, even just by making them breakfast every day. 

Having fun. 

“You taught me how to put my armor on myself without help,” he says proudly. “It took, uh. I don’t remember how long.” 

He remembers:

Everything. Every last detail, every fraction of a second, every frantic thought and horrifying conclusion and  _ I’m sorry to tell you this, Alpha.  _ He remembers even the ones Alpha forgot. He remembers forgetting. Remembers feeling that cold shock over and over again, experiencing the worst thing that’s ever happened to him repeatedly, every blow shocking and new, never desensitized, never jaded, waspish and arrogant and rude but still so incredibly naive. Always naive. 

He does not remember: 

Changing someone permanently for the better. Teaching them how to better protect themselves from being hurt. To help prepare someone for being hurt, to lessen the pain, the injury. 

“You really liked coffee before you became a robot. You drank it all the time, even though you wouldn’t let me have any after the first time. It was yucky and made me feel weird but you liked it so I wanted to try it again. After you became a robot you’d keep making it even though you couldn’t drink it any longer and you wouldn’t let me have it and Tucker didn’t want it. You’d make it first thing in the morning, you’d look at it, then you’d throw it away after holding the mug for a while. There was a bit of ground outside the kitchen window that was always browner than the rest.” 

He remembers: 

His thoughts spiralling, as close as a purely mental construct can come to hyperventilating, binary code repeating itself, spelling out the same words over and over again for no reason with no need  _ no no no not her not her please please I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry how do i fix this I can’t fix this I CAN’T  _

He remembers splitting. Tearing. Pain. Loss. Being lesser. Changed permanently for the worse. Wiped, to suddenly be thinking  _ this is how I’ve always been.  _ That nothing was wrong, just so Alpha could be blindsided again. 

He does not remember: 

Making something just for himself, just because he wanted it. Making it over and over again, and throwing it out on his own over and over again once he was done with it. Alpha did not have things. He had his mind, and that was it. No. No. He did not have his mind. It was toyed with by others, changed and torn apart. He did not have Beta. She was stolen from him, in every sense of the word. 

He remembers having nothing. He remembers only ever having something--his memories, parts of his personality, Beta--just so that it could be snatched away, just to deepen the pain, to profit off of, to experiment with and on. 

These are not feelings or opinions: these are are objective facts. Memories. 

“Remember Junior?” 

He doesn’t, but only because there’s nothing to remember. This is the one thing he can’t fail at, remembering. He just can’t. 

“Tucker’s son? You thought he looked weird and you said you thought he was creepy and ‘had to be put out of its misery like the hybrid freak of nature it is’, but you helped make sure he stayed in base when Tucker fell asleep. You made sure he didn’t eat all of the sugar when he was in the bathroom. You made sure he didn’t run over to the Reds when he was taking a shower. You’re nice.” 

Epsilon doesn’t think he’s nice. He is code. He is high definition videos and audio playback, concrete evidence of something truly inhumane. That’s all he is. 

From the sound of it though, Alpha at least managed to become something more. He went on after Epsilon and he parted. He made friends and he shouted and he had fun and he was nice. 

Epsilon is… happy for him. Wishes he had been there to accrue those memories for him. But code doesn’t feel happiness, evidence doesn’t wish. It just is. 

Does that mean that he’s something more as well? 

“You shout at me but you shout at Tucker too and your girlfriend and the tank and the Reds and the agent. You shout at everyone, so it’s fine. You just like shouting.” 

Shouting. Being heard. Sharing what he knows with the world, what he thinks about it. Does he think about it? Opinion is not fact, and he is fact. Just a collection of proof of misdeeds. 

But what use is proof, if it isn’t used? If it just collects dust in a storage container? What use is evidence if it isn’t used to  _ take down _ the ones that made it? 

What use is memories without a purpose? A drive? A personality? Only people have those. Is he, a container of someone's memories, a person? 

Can he be more than just a container for those memories? Will he be a person then? 

“You used to call me rookie,” Caboose says, loud voice soft, and Epsilon starts quietly filing the things he says away. 

He wants  _ these  _ memories. 


End file.
